Elliott Management Vs Argentina Round 3: The Showdown

Most recently, in "Elliott Management Vs Argentina Round 2: Now It's Personal" we laid out the story of how in the ongoing legal fight between Argentina's prominent distressed debt creditor, and exchange offer holdout, Elliott Management (and to a smaller degree Aurelius), and distressed debtor Argentina, the moving pieces continue in flux, even as various US legal institutions have demanded that Argentina proceed with paying the holdouts despite the Latin American country's vocal prior refusals to do so, and most importantly, the lack of a sovereign payment enforcement mechanism. Last night, the fight escalate one more, and perhaps final time, before the Rubicon is crossed and Argentina either pays Elliott, "or else" the country proves all those who furiously bought up Argentina CDS in the past two weeks correct, and the country redefaults on $24 billion of debt. Because as Reuters reports, late last night, US District Judge Griesa overseeing the Argentina case, ordered the Latin American country to make immediate payment with a deadline for escrow account funding of December 15.

In an ruling delivered just as the United States headed off for its Thursday Thanksgiving holiday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa rejected Argentina's request to maintain his previous order halting payments to holdout investors who did not participate in two bond exchanges of defaulted sovereign debt.

The ruling is the latest development in a litigation saga that has lasted more than ten years and now appears to be favoring holdout bond investors such as Elliot Management Corp's NML Capital Ltd and Aurelius Capital Management.

If Griesa's ruling is upheld and Argentina chooses to defy him, U.S. courts could ultimately inhibit debt payments to creditors who accepted the terms of the restructuring, out of consideration for investors who rejected Argentina's terms at the time.

This would trigger a technical default on approximately $24 billion worth of debt issued in the 2005 and 2010 exchanges.

Griesa essentially circumvented the traditional appeals process and said no more delays.

Griesa wrote that he would ordinarily leave his order in place pending a ruling from the 2nd Circuit. However, he concluded this was not possible given comments from Argentine officials, including President Cristina Kirchner, that Argentina would not pay anything to the holdout bondholders.

"It is the view of the District Court that these threats of defiance cannot go unheeded, and that action is called for," Griesa wrote, saying the payments should be made as soon as possible.

The 2nd Circuit already upheld Griesa's Feb. 23, 2012 decision that Argentina violated equal-treatment provisions for all creditors when it chose to pay exchange bondholders and not holdout bondholders.

Given that Griesa's latest decision still needs the final blessing of the 2nd Circuit, he ordered that rather than Argentina paying the plaintiffs directly, it should deposit the money in an escrow account by Dec. 15.

...

In his ruling, Griesa said the less time Argentina was given "to devise means for evasion, the more assurance there is against such evasion."

"There is no question about what is 'currently due' to plaintiffs," Griesa wrote. "The amount that is currently due is the amount of the unpaid principal, the due date of which has been accelerated, and accrued interest."

The ball is now in Argentina's court. As a reminder, Argentina made it quite clear it would not pay "one dollar to the vulture funds." The vulture funds in question, are Elliott Management and Aurelius, who are owed upward of $1.3 billion. "Argentina owes this and owes it now," Griesa said. "It should be emphasized that these are debts currently owed, not debts spaced out over future periods of time." Griesa said NML and Aurelius should be paid concurrently or ahead of exchange bondholders.

And with the coupon payment due in one month, when Argentina has to pay $3.14 billion in accrued interest, we will know in a matter of weeks whether a district court's harsh language in New York is enough to make a Treasurer in Buenos Aires shiver in fear. Somehow we doubt it. Which also means Naval Commodore of His Own Majesty's Navy Paul Singer Second Rank will soon be upgraded to First Rank once he privateers a few Argentinian subs and perhaps an aircraft carrier... if any were still in service of course.

Without going into details (read Subordination 101 for the full primer), Griesa basically crushed any hopes the exchanging bondholders had that they had received priority status by being fooled into the exchange offer and accepting a price of 30 cents on the dollar:

Griesa rejected arguments from exchange bondholders that full payment to NML and Aurelius would infringe on their rights.

"In accepting the exchange offers of thirty cents on the dollar, the exchange bondholders bargained for certainty and the avoidance of the burden and risk of litigating," he wrote.

"Moreover, it is hardly an injustice to have legal rulings which, at long last, mean that Argentina must pay the debts which it owes. After ten years of litigation this is a just result," the judge said.

What is most interesting is that Griesa for the first time threatened not only Argentina but its "accomplices" i.e., funds transferring "third party" banks, with enforcement should they selectively wire funds to one group of bondholders, but not another - the hold outs.

The 2nd Circuit has also directed Griesa to spell out precisely how his injunctions would apply to third-party banks.

Among the banks is BNY Mellon, which transfers funds from Argentina to the country's bondholders. It argues that the injunction would interfere with its duties to the exchange bondholders and could cause a wider disruption to the largely automated international bank payment systems.

Griesa said BNY Mellon's arguments "miss the point" and if Argentina followed the appeals court ruling there would be "no problem" about the money ending up in the right accounts.

He said that if Argentina attempted to make payments to the exchange bondholders in violation of the court's rulings, third party institutions should be "held responsible" for ensuring they are not taking steps to violate the law.

Of course, BNY has the choice to just pull out and do no more business with Argentina and its creditors. There is always the option that creditors can come in on location in Buenos Aires and collect their interest in bags with dollars signs printed on them. Or just pull an Iran, and demand payment in gold via unsupervised gold transfer pathways, such as Turkey.... or China. If and when such a circumventing route is discovered, it will be one more chip away in the dollar's reserve status.

Finally, should Argentina not make the payment in December as loudly cautioned by Griesa, wait and see just why Elliott happens to be on the ISDA determinations committee. We anticipate that ISDA will find an Argentinia event of default will have occurred within seconds of the December coupon non-payment as the country follows Hostess into Chapter 22, only this time it is really personal between Argentina and some of the wealthiest hedge funds in the world.